- Virginia man pleads not guilty to charges in DC pipe bomb case
Source: Associated Press
“A Virginia man has pleaded not guilty to charges accusing him of planting two pipe bombs outside the headquarters of the Democratic and Republican national parties on the eve of the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021. Brian J. Cole Jr., of Woodbridge, Virginia, entered the plea at a brief hearing on Friday. He is facing two counts of transporting and attempting to use explosives. Justice Department prosecutors have said that Cole confessed to placing pipe bombs outside the Republican National Committee and the Democratic National Committee headquarters only hours before a mob of President Donald Trump’s supporters stormed the Capitol. Cole said he hoped the explosives would detonate and ‘hoped there would be news about it,’ prosecutors wrote in court documents.” (01/10/26)
https://apnews.com/article/pipe-bomb-capitol-riot-cole-rnc-dnc-7c737b5bf881c01011777c586ed41e12
- Japan: Takaichi Likely To Call Early Election, Says Coalition Partner
Source: News 18 [India]
“Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi is likely to call an early general election, the head of her party’s coalition partner said on Sunday. … A local newspaper, Yomiuri, cited government sources saying Takaichi was considering holding a snap election on February 8 or 15. According to Reuters, Takaichi said she had just instructed her cabinet ministers to ensure the timely execution of the supplementary budget for the fiscal year through March and parliamentary approval of next fiscal year’s budget.” (01/11/26)
- Musk says X’s new algorithm will be made open source next week
Source: Engadget
“X may soon provide more insight into how its algorithm works. On Saturday, Elon Musk posted on the platform to say that the company ‘will make the new X algorithm, including all code used to determine what organic and advertising posts are recommended to users, open source in 7 days.’ X’s recommendation algorithm has been the subject of investigations by France and the European Commission, the latter of which recently extended through 2026 a retention order that it sent to the company at the beginning of last year.” (01/10/26)
- Syria: Kurdish-led SDF agrees to evacuate Aleppo after deadly clashes
Source: The New Arab [UK]
“The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) said Sunday that they agreed under a ceasefire to withdraw their fighters from the two districts they held in Aleppo after deadly clashes in the city. … The United States and the European Union on Saturday urged the Syrian government and Kurdish authorities to return to negotiations after days of clashes. The violence in Aleppo erupted after efforts to integrate the SDF’s de facto autonomous administration and military into the country’s new government stalled. Since the fighting began on Tuesday, at least 21 civilians have been killed, according to figures from both sides, while Aleppo’s governor said 155,000 people have been displaced.” (01/11/26)
https://www.newarab.com/news/syria-kurdish-led-sdf-agrees-evacuate-aleppo-after-clashes
- Trump seeks to stop courts, creditors from seizing stolen Venezuelan oil revenue
Source: CNBC
“U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday signed an executive order that aims to block the seizure of Venezuelan oil revenue held in U.S. Treasury accounts. The executive order states that the revenue, which is held in foreign government deposit funds, are ‘held solely for sovereign purposes’ and that any court attempt to seize the funds will ‘materially harm the national security and foreign policy’ of the U.S. The order, which declared a national emergency, said the funds are the sovereign property of Venezuela held in U.S. custody for governmental and diplomatic means, and are not assets subject to private claims. Any use of judicial process against the funds will interfere with efforts to ‘ensure economic and political stability in Venezuela,’ the order says.” (01/10/25)
https://www.cnbc.com/2026/01/10/trump-venezuela-oil-revenue.html
- Myanmar: Junta puts on second phase of “election” show
Source: France 24 [French state media]
“Myanmar on Sunday held the second phase of a vote organised by a junta-appointed election commission, with the ballot missing Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) party, the landslide winner of the last two general elections, which was banned after the 2021 coup. … With Suu Kyi sidelined and her massively popular party dissolved, democracy advocates say the vote has been rigged by a crackdown on dissent and a ballot stacked with military allies.” (01/11/26)
- Bob Weir, Grateful Dead co-founder and San Francisco rock pioneer, dies (again) at 78
Source: San Francisco Chronicle
“Bob Weir, the singer, songwriter and guitarist who co-founded the Grateful Dead and helped define the sound of the San Francisco rock scene, died Saturday, Jan. 10, after a prolonged battle with cancer and underlying health issues, his family said. He was 78.” [editor’s note: In 1983, I was sitting in a high school science classroom reading the newspaper, when I had occasion to look across at my friend Victor Weir and ask him if he was related to Bob Weir of the Grateful Dead, who had just died of a drug overdose. I’m not sure when the Matrix’s programmers changed the timeline to undo that; I didn’t notice until the early 2000s when I married a Deadhead – TLK] (01/10/26)
https://www.sfchronicle.com/entertainment/music/article/bob-weir-grateful-dead-obituary-17815186.php
- Nicaragua: Regime frees political prisoners amid pressure from Trump regime
Source: Al Jazeera [Qatari state media]
“Nicaragua’s left-wing [sic] government has announced the release of dozens of prisoners following pressure from United States President Donald Trump’s administration. The government of President Daniel Ortega said in a statement on Saturday that ‘tens of people who were in the national penitentiary system have gone home to their families.’ … While the government described the move as a gesture to commemorate 19 years of Ortega’s government, Nicaragua is under considerable pressure from the US over its human rights record and a years-long crackdown on opposition leaders and activists.” (01/10/26)
- Judge blocks Trump regime from freezing child care welfare funds
Source: Axios
“The Trump administration on Friday was blocked from freezing roughly $10 billion in federal funding for child care and social services in five Democratic-led states, a federal judge ordered. Judge Arun Subramanian decided that the administration must release funds for three social service programs that serve low-income families and individuals with disabilities for the next two weeks, despite President Trump’s efforts to withhold the funds. … The suit, filed Thursday evening in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, alleges that the freeze was triggered by viral misinformation, political rhetoric and public threats from Trump and top officials, not by fraud findings.” (01/10/26)
- Caribbean: US-based pirates steal fifth oil tanker
Source: NBC News
“The United States has seized another tanker in its campaign to control the flow of oil to and from Venezuela. The Olina was seized overnight in the Caribbean Sea, an operation conducted by the Coast Guard and Joint Task Force Southern Spear, two U.S. officials told NBC News. … It’s the fifth tanker seized by the U.S. in recent weeks, and comes days after American forces in the North Atlantic took control of the Bella 1, a Russian-flagged tanker that fled the American blockade and led a weekslong chase.” (01/09/26)
- We’re really doing another year of this?
Source: USA Today
by Rex Huppke“[W]e are less than two weeks into the new year, and what we have seen from a president and a Republican Party ostensibly put in control of the country to lower food prices and improve the lives of hardworking Americans is chaos and death. At his 2025 inauguration, Trump said: ‘Our power will stop all wars and bring a new spirit of unity to a world that has been angry, violent, and totally unpredictable.’ Bandying about like pirates snatching other nations’ oil and gunning down Americans in the streets doesn’t jibe with stopping wars or nurturing a new spirit of unity. … Even if you, for some reason, approve of a federal agent shooting multiple times into a vehicle while recording video on his cell phone, there should at least be some universal agreement that the Trump administration’s response to what happened in Minneapolis has been vile, inflammatory and sickeningly tribal.” (01/11/26)
- Will Trump’s Residential Investment Ban Really Make Housing More Affordable?
Source: Garrison Center
by Thomas L Knapp“When government shoves its nose into markets, the supposed beneficiaries usually end up losing. Politically connected businesses pocket more money. Government bureaucrats enjoy more power. Everyone else pays through the nose. Politicians’ assertions of contrary motivation just add insult to injury.” (01/10/26)
- Mayor Mamdani’s collectivist warmth is a lot like chilly Commie Bucharest
Source: New York Post
by James Bovard“Mayor Mamdani promised New Yorkers Jan. 1 he would ‘replace the frigidity of rugged individualism with the warmth of collectivism.’ Luckily, psychiatrists have not yet classified ‘rugged individualism’ as a mental illness. But Mamdani’s vision of cozy collectivism is tricky to reconcile with what I saw in Communist Romania in November 1987. … In Romania, ‘warmth’ was an abstraction that existed primarily in propaganda campaigns exalting the supreme leader, Nicolae Ceaușescu. To save energy to fulfill the Five-Year Plan for factories, the government routinely cut off the electricity to hospitals, causing 1,000 deaths the previous winter. The infant mortality rate was so high, the government refused to register children as being born until they survived their first month. On the streets …. People stopped me and pleaded for packs of Kent cigarettes — the de facto second currency — they could use to bribe doctors to get health care for their sick children.” (01/10/26)
https://nypost.com/2026/01/10/opinion/mamdanis-collectivist-warmth-is-a-lot-like-commmunist-chill/
- Americans Are Sick and Tired of Pointless Wars
Source: The Intercept
by Alain Stephens“From a purely tactical standpoint, the operation was a textbook display of American might: fast, overwhelming, and successful, with U.S. forces in and out of Venezuela before most of the world had even processed what was happening. But almost immediately, that show of force collided with a harder reality at home: Only 1 in 3 Americans say they support it, an unusually low level of approval at the very outset of a U.S. military operation. A Reuters/Ipsos poll taken January 4 to 5 found that just 33 percent approved of the U.S. removing Maduro, while 72 percent reported their concerns about the U.S. getting too involved in Venezuela. Support breaks sharply along party lines, with Republicans backing the operation at far higher rates than Democrats and independents. Historically, Americans have given new conflicts much more leeway. ” (01/10/26)
https://theintercept.com/2026/01/10/venezuela-trump-pointless-wars/
- Nostalgia isn’t strategy: Stop the Monroe revisionism and listen
Source: Responsible Statecraft
by Brandan P Buck“‘[T]herefore you may rest assured that if the Nicaraguan activities were brought to light, they would furnish one of the largest scandals in the history of the country.’ Such was the concluding line of a letter from Marine Corps Sergeant Harry Boyle to Idaho Senator William Borah on April 23, 1930. Boyle’s warning was not merely an artifact of a bygone intervention, but a caution against imperial hubris — one newly relevant in the wake of ‘Operation Absolute Resolve’ in Venezuela. The Trump administration has amplified the afterglow of its tactical success with renewed assertions of hemispheric hegemony through a nostalgic and often ahistorical reading of the Monroe Doctrine. Despite the administration’s enthusiasm for old-fashioned hemispheric imperialism, the historical record ought to caution for restraint, not revisionism.” (01/09/26)
- Helping ICE be safer
Source: Christian Science Monitor
by staff“Over the past year, several cities in the United States have erupted temporarily into war zones. Violence has broken out between immigration agents and those living in the country illegally [sic], or Americans hampering deportations. In recent days, a killing in Minneapolis and shootings in Oregon by federal agents have highlighted the potential for personal tragedy stemming from the Trump administration’s enforcement of immigration laws as well as the street tactics opposing such law enforcement. Agents of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) have been connected to at least 14 shootings over the past 12 months. At the same time, the mental impact on these federal officers has also risen, perhaps causing many to be too quick to pull the trigger.” [editor’s note: ICE agents are free to give up the thug life and get real jobs if people’s natural reactions to murderous goons makes them feel unsafe – TLK] (01/09/25)
https://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/the-monitors-view/2026/0109/Helping-ICE-be-safer
- 2016: The Year American Democracy Became “Post-Truth”
Source: JimBovard.com
by James Bovard“Was the 2016 election a turning point for American democracy? Did political shenanigans and the election destroy so much credibility and legitimacy that the system will never fully recover? In 2016, ignorant voters were reviled like never before. However, the entire political-media system floundered badly. Never before had American voters been obliged to choose between two such widely despised candidates. A few months before the election, an Associated Press poll ‘found that 86 percent of Americans were angry or dissatisfied with the state of politics in the nation.’ Routine deceit by both candidates helped make ‘post-truth’ the Oxford English Dictionary’s word of the year for 2016.” (01/09/26)
https://jimbovard.com/blog/2026/01/09/2016-the-year-american-democracy-became-post-truth/
- Are Free Traders Materialistic — or Are Protectionists?
Source: The Daily Economy
by Donald J Boudreaux“The claim that protectionism serves ‘higher ends’ rests on a confusion about both economics and the non-economic goals people actually value.” (01/09/26)
https://thedailyeconomy.org/article/are-free-traders-materialistic-or-protectionists/
- There Will Be More Renee Goods
Source: The Dispatch
by Jeremiah Johnson“On Wednesday, a woman named Renee Good was shot and killed by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent in Minneapolis. There are a lot of things you could say about the shooting. … You could point out that it is extremely unclear why ICE officials were stopping her in the first place, or what legal authority they were exercising at that moment. You could point out how unnecessary the entire incident was, how eyewitness accounts emphasize that Good was not acting in a threatening manner …. But what’s most important to say is how utterly predictable Good’s death was. This was not an unforeseeable tragedy or a freak accident. It was the inevitable outcome of an immigration enforcement apparatus that has been poorly trained, sheltered from consequences, and empowered to behave recklessly.” (01/09/26)
https://thedispatch.com/article/renee-good-ice-federal-agents-death-immigration/
- Did the Articles of Confederation Fail? Probably Not
Source: Ludwig von Mises Institute
by Larsen Plyler“It is taken, in many cases, to be fact that the reason the Constitutional Convention was called and that the Constitution was ratified was because of the failure of the Articles of Confederation system. The folks at Heritage have made their position clear: ‘The first plan the Framers tried after declaring independence was called the Articles of Confederation. The government that the Articles created failed because it was too weak to coordinate national policy among states with different priorities.’ Now, this is not particularly a criticism of the Constitution, though I believe there is room for that. But, I simply want to raise questions: What if the Articles were not failing? What if they were doing exactly what they were intended to do? What if the Articles were successful, but success was not in the agenda of powerful people?” (01/09/26)
https://mises.org/mises-wire/did-articles-confederation-fail-probably-not
- These Abuses Will Continue Until People Force Them To Stop
Source: Caitlin Johnstone, Rogue Journalist
by Caitlin Johnstone“All these abuses are going to continue until the people rise up and force them to stop. Western governments are going to get more and more authoritarian. Police forces are going to get more and more militarized and murderous. Freedom of speech is going to be crushed with more and more aggression. Military budgets are going to get more and more bloated. The imperial war machine is going to get more and more belligerent, genocidal and expansionist. The gap between the rich and the poor is going to keep growing and growing. People are going to get more and more miserable and mentally unhealthy. The systems we use to gather information about our world are going to get more and more tightly controlled by the powerful. The extraction of resources and labor from the global south will get more and more abusive and overt.” (01/09/25)
- Assessing Modernity’s Malaise
Source: Law & Liberty
by Alex Hibbs“As anyone living today knows, the Luddites were fighting a losing battle. Though they broke stocking frames, burned factories, and killed mill owners, their efforts to stymie the rise of new cost-reducing machines could not compete with the power of the British state. Their legendary leader, Ned Ludd, inspired disgruntled craftsmen and terrified the authorities like a nineteenth-century Robin Hood. Yet the long processes of enclosure, technological innovation, and global expansion would nonetheless bring mass urbanization, the destruction of local cultures, and the rise of the technologically driven society we inhabit today. In his book Against the Machine: On the Unmaking of Humanity, Paul Kingsnorth speaks with the voice of a modern-day Ned Ludd, naming the force that propelled this change: The Machine. What exactly is Kingsnorth’s Machine? It is the culmination of all the ills of modernity.” (01/09/26)
https://lawliberty.org/book-review/assessing-modernitys-malaise/
- Thomas Paine’s Common Sense Must Inspire Us Again
Source: Common Dreams
by Harvey J Kaye & Alan Minsky“Common Sense by Thomas Paine is the most influential work of political literature in American history. Self-published on January 10, 1776, Common Sense instantly became a sensation, spreading like wildfire across the colonies. Within a few weeks, it had sold more copies than any book in the history of the colonies. Paine’s arguments persuaded thousands-upon-thousands of people throughout the 13 colonies to demand more than reform, to support complete independence from England and join the revolutionary cause. Less than six months after Common Sense was first published in Philadelphia, the Declaration of Independence was signed in the same city, establishing a new country defined, in contrast to its European predecessors, by its commitment to equality, liberty and the consent of the governed—just as Paine advocated in Common Sense (and, unlike the founding fathers, Paine did not hesitate to advocate for democracy).” (01/10/25)
https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/honor-thomas-paine-common-sense
- The Minimum Wage Fallacy
Source: Independent Institute
by Allen Gindler“Recently, I came across a commercial by Mayor Mamdani, who advertises his approach to supporting small businesses. He correctly identifies over-regulation as one of the unnecessary obstacles in opening and conducting small businesses in New York. Then he suggested creating yet another department in the mayor’s office, which would help businesspeople navigate the web of requirements the city demands from businesses. (It looks like a socialist brain is pre-wired to produce this kind of solution: any issue needs its own bureaucratic apparatus.) But he never mentioned the main reason why it is so difficult for new small businesses to survive, besides high rent, that is the minimum wage mandate. On the contrary, among his priorities is to raise the city’s minimum wage. He imagines politicians can decree prosperity by commanding higher pay.” (01/09/26)
https://www.independent.org/article/2026/01/09/minimum-wage-fallacy/
- A president who treats Washington like his chew toy
Source: Washington Post
by George F Will“It is incongruous that Donald Trump, who advertises his disdain for things European, wants to give us something that no one in his or her right mind wants: a knockoff of France’s Arc de Triomphe. Which is bad enough. Worse, he wants to situate it on a Washington site where it will clutter one of the world’s great urban vistas. He would place it on the Virginia side of the Memorial Bridge, below the Custis-Lee mansion, which sits on high ground in what became Arlington National Cemetery. … Given Trump’s gargantuan exercises of executive discretion regarding great matters of state, it might seem quaint to wonder why he cannot be stopped from treating Washington as his chew toy. This would be unworthy of our nation if he had exquisite taste. The fact that he revels in being a vulgarian takes a toll on the nation’s soul.” (01/09/26)
- Obedience, In The Teaching of Jesus
Source: The Findings Substack
by Paul Rosenberg“Please look something up: Find out how many times Jesus, himself, used the words obedience or obey. (blueletterbible.org is a good source.) Those of you who do will find a shocking result … a grand total of zero uses. About the best you can get, and only in a few versions, is a single word in John 3 that’s mistranslated. (It’s believe in most versions.) And that word didn’t come out of Jesus’ mouth anyway. Isn’t it strange, then, that modern Christian doctrine is almost fully obsessed with obedience and disobedience? This is, to the theologians, the fundamental Divine pivot; the entire drama of salvation turns on obedience and disobedience. Why, then, did Jesus never mention it?” (01/09/26)
https://thefindings.substack.com/p/obedience-in-the-teaching-of-jesus
- Is America Destroying Itself?
Source: Town Hall
by Mark Lewis“‘If our nation is ever taken over, it will be taken over from within.’ — James Madison … America currently appears to be in the process of destroying itself. The problems are too numerous to list here, but the most recent devolution comes from the Somali financial fraud and the killing of a woman in Minnesota by ICE, which has leftists all over the country rioting, protesting, and calling for a repetition of the George Floyd mayhem of 2020. And this is just the tip of the iceberg of the horrors the nation now faces. As Madison rightly said, if our nation falls, if it is destroyed, it will at least start from within. America is too big: it has too many people, too much geography, too many financial resources, and too large a military to ever be conquered from without until there is nothing left but a dung heap which we created ourselves.” (01/10/25)
https://townhall.com/columnists/marklewis/2026/01/10/is-america-destroying-itself-n2669184
- “We’re” All Neocons Now
Source: Free Association
by Sheldon Richman“Apart from a few details, I never saw much difference between Trump’s America First shtick and MAGA’s chief foe, the neconservatives. It appeared to be merely a squabble over details, such as whether democracy or strongman rule abroad best served the so-called national interest. No one believes in America Second, Third, or Nth. Trump’s action in Venezuela confirms my impression. Beneath the surface, the contrast between Trumpian America First and neoconservatism disappears.” (01/09/26)
https://sheldonfreeassociation.blogspot.com/2026/01/tgif-were-all-neocons-now.html
- Renee Good Wasn’t the First Person Shot in Her Car by ICE. The Justification Followed a Familiar Script.
Source: Cato Institute
by Mike Fox“In the shadows of President Donald Trump’s mass deportation blitz, a lethal pattern has emerged. Since July, immigration agents have shot at least six people behind the wheel of a vehicle (two of them fatal, including Wednesday’s shooting). In each instance, the playbook is the same: the agent claims self-defense, asserting they ‘feared for their life’ as a vehicle was ‘weaponized’ against them.” (01/09/26)
- DHS Invokes Immigration Enforcement To Justify Gathering Americans’ DNA
Source: Reason
by JD Tuccille“Government agencies inevitably turn enforcement responsibilities into opportunities to extend the security state. Every initiative to document, monitor, track, or otherwise spy on Americans starts with a mandate to ensure that people are obeying some rule or law. So it is with immigration policies, which fuel government efforts to gather biometric information not just on those who want to enter the country, but on citizens born and raised here. Fortunately, the scheme is getting pushback.” (01/09/26)
- Where Trump’s Imperialism Could Strike Next
Source: The American Prospect
by Ellen Ioanes“In the days since U.S. Delta Force detained Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores on grounds related to drug and weapons charges, there have been frantic questions about the operation. Why would President Trump direct something so brazen and, potentially, illegal? What is the U.S. government’s plan for Venezuela’s future? And now that we’ve pulled off the audacious kidnapping of a head of state and essentially taken over a foreign country, could it happen again? At the moment, Trump is renewing threats to take Greenland, the island territory under Danish administration that he says is strategically important for national security. It would be difficult for Greenland and Denmark to mount any sort of significant defense should Trump decide on a military operation to take the island, according to David Silbey, a professor of history at Cornell University specializing in military history and defense policy.” (01/09/25)
https://prospect.org/2026/01/09/trump-venezuela-greeland-cuba-colombia-iran-imperialism/
- Trump to Venezuelans: Obey My Commands and Give Me Your Oil, or Die
Source: Future of Freedom Foundation
by Jacob G Hornberger“In the aftermath of President Trump’s deadly military attack on Venezuela and his abduction and rendition of Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro and his wife Cilia, Trump is now giving the Venezuelan Chavista regime a simple choice: Obey my commands and give me your oil, or die from death by starvation and illness. … After all, who cares about the U.S. assassinations of those hundred defenseless people in those little boats who were accused of violating U.S. drug laws hundreds of miles away from American shores? Who cares about those 100 people who were killed as part of Trump’s abduction raid against Maduro? Who cares about the 8 million Venezuelans who have fled the country in the effort to survive the vise of Chavista socialism and brutal and deadly U.S. sanctions?” (01/09/26)
https://www.fff.org/2026/01/09/trump-to-venezuelans-obey-my-commands-and-give-me-your-oil-or-die/
- There’s a Strange, Depressing Logic to Trump’s Foreign Policy
Source: Yascha Mounk
by Yascha Mounk“We tend to analyze foreign policy in terms of doctrines or ideologies. But from The Art of the Deal to his first primary campaign, Trump has always been more defined by a way of doing things than by a firmly held set of commitments or objectives about what to achieve in the world (other than to look out for Number One). That same mindset can help us make sense of Trump’s actions in Venezuela, and perhaps even to get some kind of handle on what kinds of actions the White House might pursue next.” (01/09/26)
- National Defense
Source: David Friedman’s Substack
by David Friedman“In Less Bad Arguments for Protectionism I offered a number of arguments for tariffs that, unlike the more common ones, are consistent with a correct understanding1 of the economics of trade; I do not find any of then convincing but someone else might. One had to do with national defense. Suppose we get into a war with China. It would be inconvenient if some of the things we needed for the war, ammunition, computer chips, drones, or something else, were things we did not produce because we had been importing them from China. So it might be prudent to use protective tariffs to keep critical industries going even if they could not compete with foreign competitors. It is not an absurd argument, but it has several problems, especially as a defense of the tariffs Trump actually imposed.” (01/09/26)
- Even the Washington Post admits Jack Smith was wrong on free speech
Source: Fox News
by Jonathan Turley“For years, some of us have argued that President Donald Trump’s January 6th speech was protected under the First Amendment and that any prosecution would collapse under governing precedent, including Brandenburg v. Ohio. I was regularly attacked as an apologist for my criticism of Special Counsel Jack Smith’s ‘war on free speech.’ I wrote about his history of ignoring such constitutional protections in his efforts to prosecute targets at any cost. I also wrote about how Smith’s second indictment (which the Post supported) was a direct assault on the First Amendment. Now, years later, the Washington Post has acknowledged that Trump’s speech was protected and that Smith ‘would have blown a hole in the First Amendment.’ In this appearance before Congress, Smith’s contempt for the First Amendment was on full display.” (01/10/25)
- America’s AI electricity “crisis” is easily fixed: Unleash market forces
Source: Orange County Register
by Steven Greenhut“Communities are rebelling against the construction of massive data farms. Some opposition is based on land-use concerns, but it’s also is driven by fear of inadequate electricity and higher energy prices. As the Competitive Enterprise Institute’s Clyde Wayne Crews explains, this is a symptom ‘of far deeper structural problems rooted in legacy approaches to infrastructure — approaches that tether data centers to coercive public utility price- and access-control models.’ Perhaps it’s time for an approach that unleashes market forces, as the AI boom is showing the limits of our regulated monopoly power model.” (01/09/26)
- Trump’s Backyard Imperialism Won’t Work
Source: The American Conservative
by Jennifer Kavanagh“Simply put, the turn in U.S. foreign policy toward the Western Hemisphere does not represent (so far) the long-awaited transformation that America First ‘restrainers’ have hoped for. Instead, it is yet another manifestation of the same old American pattern: the addition of new military commitments without shedding old ones. We cannot praise the administration’s military activity in Latin America as somehow better than expending resources in the Donbas or the deserts of the Middle East — because under Trump, the United States is doing these things too.” (01/09/26)
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/trumps-backyard-imperialism-wont-work/
- After 35 years in prison, Charlie Vaughn is free
Source: The Watch
by Radley Balko“Vaughn, an Arkansas man with a severe intellectual disability, spent decades in prison for a murder he did not commit. He was finally released on Friday.” (01/09/26)
https://radleybalko.substack.com/p/after-35-years-in-prison-charlie
- End Military Action in Venezuela and Help Working Class Americans
Source: In These Times
by Lindsay Koshgarian“At a time when nearly half of Americans say they’re struggling to afford basic necessities, President Trump has turned his attention to invading and ruling Venezuela. One in two Americans are having trouble affording groceries, utilities, health care, housing, and transportation, according to a recent poll. Healthcare costs are rising – and in many cases doubling — for millions of Americans because Republicans in Congress refuse to help. And while grocery prices remain high, those same GOP lawmakers chose to cut food stamps for millions of struggling people. Our government should be helping working people and families. Instead, the president chose to use our tax dollars to invade a foreign country.” (01/08/25)
https://inthesetimes.com/article/venezuela-maduro-trump-invasion-oil-healthcare-housing
- Bulwark Takes, 01/10/26
Source: The Bulwark
“America Used to Know This Was Wrong.” (01/10/26)
- Unattended Baggage, episode 324
Source: Unattended Baggage
“The NWO is dead, Long Live the NWO.” (01/10/26)
https://unattendedbaggage.substack.com/p/episode-324-the-nwo-is-dead-long
- Reasonably Optimistic, 01/10/26
Source: Washington Post
“No blood for oil? That doesn’t make sense for Venezuela.” (01/10/26)
- Neon Liberalism, episode 59
Source: Liberal Currents
“Venezuela and the State of American Strategy.” (01/10/26)
https://www.liberalcurrents.com/neon-liberalism-59-venezuela-and-the-state-of-american-strategy/
- Underthrow Podcast, 01/10/26
Source: Underthrow
“Rivera and McGrath on Understanding Boyd’s OODA Loop and Organizational Learning (Part Two).” (01/10/26)
https://underthrow.substack.com/p/bonus-surfing-the-whirl-of-reorientation
- The Good Fight, 01/10/26
Source: Yascha Mounk
“Scott Anderson on Why Iran’s Real Revolution Might Be Coming.” (01/10/26)
- Quillette Podcast, episode 320
Source: Quillette
“Fighting for Freedom in Iran.” (01/09/26)
https://quillette.com/2026/01/10/podcast-320-fighting-for-freedom-in-iran/
- The Political Orphanage, 01/09/26
Source: The Political Orphanage
“I Explain Venezuela Using Lottery Tickets.” (01/09/26)
https://politicalorphanage.libsyn.com/i-explain-venezuela-using-lottery-tickets
- The Intercept Briefing, 01/09/26
Source: The Intercept
“Greg Grandin on Trump’s ‘Universal Police Warrant.'” (01/09/26)
https://theintercept.com/2026/01/09/trump-venezuela-maduro-greg-grandin/
- Soho Forum Debate: Should Child Protective Services Intervene More?
Source: Reason
“Naomi Schaefer Riley and Martin Guggenheim debate the proper role of child protective services.” (01/09/26)
https://reason.com/podcast/2026/01/09/should-child-protective-services-intervene-more/
- Serious Trouble, 01/09/26
Source: Serious Trouble
“Nicolas Maduro is brought to court in the United States; Minnesota officials seek to investigate the Minneapolis ICE shooting; Trump loses on the shadow docket.” (01/09/26)
- Ramzy Baroud on The Scott Horton Show
Source: The Scott Horton Show
“The Genocide in Gaza Has Not Ended.” (01/09/26)
https://scotthorton.org/interviews/1-7-26-ramzy-baroud-the-genocide-in-gaza-has-not-ended/
- Zooming In, 01/09/26
Source: The UnPopulist
“ICE Is Only Getting Started, the Worst Is Yet to Come: A Conversation with David J. Bier.” (01/09/26)
https://www.theunpopulist.net/p/ice-is-only-getting-started-the-worst
- The Daily Blast With Greg Sargent, 01/09/26
Source: The New Republic
“Trump Shooting Fiasco Worsens as Dems Find Fresh Line of Attack on ICE.” (01/09/26)
https://newrepublic.com/article/205107/trump-shooting-fiasco-worsens-dems-find-fresh-line-attack-ice